


Forgive Me (that I live and you are gone)

by Molly_Hats



Category: Batgirl (Comics), Batman (Comics), DCU (Comics), Red Robin (Comics)
Genre: Angst, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Les Misérables References, Survivor Guilt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-14
Updated: 2018-10-14
Packaged: 2019-08-01 22:39:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 893
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16293179
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Molly_Hats/pseuds/Molly_Hats
Summary: Harper hosts Saturday Musical Night.  Tim makes it through nearly all of Les Misérables before having to flee to the bathroom to cry.





	Forgive Me (that I live and you are gone)

Tim sort of came expecting to cry. Bruce always sobbed, getting misty after a few bars of a given song, but that was Bruce. The man was cold and bad at emotions, but reliably susceptible to tearjerkers. As he sat with his back against the tub, gasping for air as tears ran down his cheeks, he should have been proud for lasting this long.

* * *

“I Dreamed a Dream” was fine. “Drink With Me” had a few tears, but normal. “A Little Fall of Rain” had a level of crying appropriate for a death scene. “Turning” had him on edge, and then came “Empty Chairs at Empty Tables.”

Onscreen, Marius slowly lowered himself to the floor, picking up a glass with a candle and slowly rising. His voice didn’t waver, didn’t crack, a strength to his song that nevertheless carried so much pain. 

Tim’s vision blurred slightly, and he glanced to the side to monitor the others as subtly as he could. Harper was hugging Cullen, as she had been for most of the second act, and Steph and Cass were holding hands, tears running down Steph’s face and Cass frowning. 

It was when Marius stood, when he faced the unseen, unreal actors of his friends, each holding their own candle aloft, that he sang the horrible line. 

“Oh my friends, my friends forgive me/that I live and you are gone.” 

Tim’s eyes watered and didn’t stop, tears after tears running down, and he needed to breathe, needed to let his chest heave, couldn’t control himself. Steph glanced up at him, and he covered his face with his hand, waiting for her to look away. She did, and he slipped over the back of the couch and fled to the bathroom, a choked sound nearly giving him away.

Tim pinned the door closed with his foot against any possible well-meaning or less-than-well-meaning intruders and struggled to breathe through the tears. He clenched his jaw and angrily wiped at them, only succeeding in covering his whole face with a film of salty water. 

His chest rose and fell as he tried to distract himself, leaning his head back against the tub. This was the last time he’d let Steph or Cullen talk him into musical night. 

_Clear your mind,_ he ordered himself. _You learned how years ago._

But his mind wouldn’t clear that easily, and the song was stuck in his head. If he knew the words better, maybe it would plod on relentlessly, but he didn’t, so the first words looped over and over again, always coming to that horrible climax.

The revulsion, the grief, the guilt were visceral, accompanied by people whose names and faces he didn’t even need to think of clearly anymore, all merged into a single sea of shame and sadness. The familiarity with Marius didn’t come in words or parallels, it came in a deep, frothing pit of pure, wordless emotion that flashed hot and cold between his skin and his ribcage. 

“Tim?” Cassandra’s voice was outside the bathroom door.

“What’s up, Cass?” Tim said, his voice wavering and the words bent by the twisted shape of his mouth. 

“The wedding’s starting,” she said.

Tim sniffed. “I shipped him with Éponine.”

There was a sound on the other side of the door, someone sitting down and placing their back against it heavily. He knew it was for his benefit. Silence was first nature to Cassandra.

Tim breathed hard, knowing Cass could hear it on the other side of the door and hating himself. “You can go back.”

“I know,” Cass replied. “But I won’t.”

“Cass, I’m fine here. There’s nothing you can do.” He pressed his foot harder against the door, accidentally rattling it. 

Cass said nothing, but Tim could see her fingers through the crack between the door and the floor.

“Can you… can you talk to me? Please? About anything.”

Cass was silent for a moment, and Tim was about to apologize when she spoke. “Everyone dies in the middle of the barricade.”

“What?” Tim asked, his tears slowing.

“They should avoid it. But they don’t.”

“I guess the idea is that nowhere there is safe,” Tim said slowly. “Maybe they know if they’re in the middle they’ll get a good death scene.”

Cass exhaled, almost a laugh. “Maybe.”

Tim pulled his foot back from the door quietly, bringing his knees to his chest. He grabbed the corner of the hand towel resting in a crumpled, soggy mess on the counter and pulled it to him. He wiped his face and blew his nose on a piece of toilet paper, then pushed himself up onto the rim of the tub. “Who’s your favorite character, Cass?”

Cass hummed. “Cosette’s mom.”

“Fantine?”

“Mmm-hmm.”

Tim nodded. “At the risk of being a basic bitch, Valjean for me.”

“You’re already a basic bitch.”

“You’ve been spending too much time with Steph.”

“No, with you.”

Tim chuckled. “Ouch. You wound me.”

“You want to go back?”

“Is it gonna be really sad?”

“No promises.”

Tim smiled, sniffling again. “Okay. Please don’t let Steph tease me too much.”

“Nobody tells Steph what to do.”

“Fair point.”

Tim stood up and opened the door to find Cassandra standing on the other side. She held out a hand, and he took it, the first notes of the Finale drifting down the hallway toward them.

**Author's Note:**

> What are they watching and how? Headcanon that in the DCU, Broadway does professional film recordings of its plays. It’s one of the handful of things that are better there than in our universe.
> 
> This fic brought to you by my getting to watch LM and Losing It hard at this specific line. I’m a sucker for survivor’s guilt, probably why I like Tim so much.
> 
> This entire story is me trying and failing to capture the raw freaking emotion of ECAET. I know it’s super famous and you hear it everywhere but it’s so dang good, and after that whole musical you feel it deep inside and it tugs at your heartstrings and also your lungs.


End file.
